


And Still I Dream He'll Come To Me

by takingovermidnight



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Era, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, M/M, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-30
Updated: 2017-03-30
Packaged: 2018-10-12 18:42:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10497210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/takingovermidnight/pseuds/takingovermidnight
Summary: In which Grantaire is forced out of Les Amis and his life just gets worse from there.I listened to I dreamed a dream and looked at Enjoltaire stuff at the same time. Hence this monstrosity was born.





	

It was a typical night at the musain, all of Les Amis were gathered around their fiery leader as he made yet another one of his passionate speeches about the necessity of an uprising against the tyrannical government. The students who filled the second floor of the musain eagerly listened to their leader cheering along with his promise that rebellion will spur a new age, a better age for France. Well all of the students, with the exception of a lone drunkard sitting in the corner. 

“Oh Apollo,” the drunk began, “you talk of revolution nearly everyday to the same crowd. What does convincing those who already have a death wish to throw their lives away accomplish? You say the masses will rally behind you, but what masses? The masses are those who value their own lives more than a hypothetical ‘revolution’ and no matter how terrible they may be do not wish to throw them away. You and our friends are not the masses. If you were we would’ve achieved your wish already.”

The leader who the man in the back called Apollo turned to face the man in the corner and declared, “I do not wish to engage in an argument with one who has consumed so much wine that he is unable to stand upright without toppling over. Your intoxicated mind cannot comprehend that the people are as angry as I and that they too desire what we discus at these meetings. If you had ever bothered to show up in support of our rallies you would see their spirit as well. The people long for a world in which they are free from the chains of a king, I am simply their voice.”

The man in the back with ink colored curls covering his half open eyes continued questioning the golden haired leader, “How do you know that, oh fine god of the sun? How do you know that you aren’t just throwing your life away for a revolution that even the most knowledgeable historians will not bother to study?” 

“Grantaire, for christ’s sake you cannot even keep your eyes open. You are seconds away from passing out and having to be carried out of the meeting. If all you are ever going to do is drink wine and try to dissuade people from their justified ideas of revolution you can go home. You are not needed here if you simply wish to plague those who are brave enough to have hope with your negativity.” The now red-faced leader hollered. 

“I am ever so sorry my fine leader for simply being realistic,” The man known as Grantaire responded sardonically.

“Did you not hear me when I told you to go home? In fact, go home and never come back. If you don’t believe in our cause, it would be best if you just do not join in on our meetings at all.” The leader commanded.

Without protesting further Grantaire stumbled out of the back corner and began to make his way out of the musain without so much as giving his friends a simple goodbye.

“Do you not think that was a bit excessive Enjolras?” a student questioned the disgruntled leader.

“It was not an easy choice to tell our good friend to exit our lives and our cause, but it was a necessary one. It’s the dawn of revolution and if we want to get the people to rally behind us we cannot waste our precious time trying to dissuade one cynic of his own misguided beliefs.” The leader known as Enjolras answered his concerned colleague. 

“Did you have to tell him to leave forever, though?” the same man pushed the question that plagued the minds of everyone in musain.

“My decision is final, Courfeyrac. If you oppose doing what’s best for the revolution then you may join him.

At that the men were silent and did not wish to further question or force their golden haired leader to rethink his decision. A somber atmosphere filled the cafe and the men said nothing aside from a few muttered goodbyes before retreating to their homes.

 

* * *

 

Grantaire awoke the next morning to the sun peaking through the clouds that still lingered from the previous night’s rain. His head pulsed from the amount of alcohol he had consumed the previous night, but that headache was routine for the cynic as he knew very well that it would soon vanish when he became drunk once again, only to be present again the next morning. It was simply his routine in the same sense that his friends would wake up, go to class, attend Apollo’s little revolution lecture, catch up with one another, then go home to sleep and wake up to embark on the same routine. Of course there were always times when they would not follow that routine, like when Joly needed to provide someone with medical assistance or when Marius was off chasing his fictitious girlfriend around. Today Grantaire’s routine was broken, but not in that sense that his friend’s routines were broken because this break in routine was permanent. 

However this information of a forever broken routine did not strike the man until he took his first swig of wine. The realization hit him in waves like bullets from a firing squad each more painful than the last.  _ Did that really happen?  _ The first bullet.  _ Oh god what did I do this time?  _ The second.  _ My friends… will they ever acknowledge me again?  _ The third.  _ What will I do with myself now?  _ The fourth.  _ Do they all want me gone forever?  _ The fifth.  _ Do all of my friends hate me?  _ The sixth.  _ Will Enjolras ever forgive me?  _ The seventh.  _ How can I live now that the only light in my life is out?  _ The eighth. 

The eighth bullet alone was a strong enough final blow to knock Grantaire into his bed for the rest of the day. He laid there as hopelessly as one of the poor dying on the street only leaving his bed to search for more wine. It took inhumanely severe amounts of wine to distract the troubled man from the events that had unfolded the previous night. Usually after a bottle his dark thoughts would fade into lighter ones, but there was no such case. That morning Grantaire had experienced more than a routine headache, rather he experienced an unimaginable heartache. 

Eventually the wine became too much to bare for even someone as accustomed to it as Grantaire and he passed out. Multiple times, some on the floor of his room surrounded by empty bottles or others in his bed covered in wine stained sheets. He continued like that for days, possibly even weeks. He continued drinking for no other reason than to pass out so he would not have to confront another day. If any of his friends had come by to check on him they surely had come by while he was unconscious or while he was just too drunk to remember their visits. Grantaire’s brain barely had the ability to contain any thoughts and if it did he would forget them almost immediately after he thought them up in the first place. Although two thoughts persisted through the cloudiness of the drunk’s memory. Unfortunately those two thoughts did not serve him with anything beneficial as the thoughts always consisted of either wine or Enjolras. The thing he thought he loved the most, and the thing he would never admit he loved more.

 

* * *

 

“Joly, you went to see Grantaire today, right? Is he any better?” A young man asks as soon the medical student enters the musain.

“Yes I went to see him. Sadly I’m afraid his condition is only getting worse.” Joly sighed, “At first when I walked into his room I mistakened him for a dead body laying across the floor. Do not worry though, he had a pulse, but I don’t know if he will for much longer. I’ve been to lectures about the effects excessive amounts of alcohol can have on the body, none of them are good.”

“Well, when Jehan went to check on him yesterday he was awake. So if we just show up at the right time maybe we can-” The same man rambled only to get cut off.

“Bossuet, just because I saw him awake doesn’t mean that he was any better.” Jehan interrupts, but not in a way that would be considered rude, “The entire time I was there I was trying to tell him to stop drinking and eat something, but the entire time he just rambled about greek myths and drank at least 2 bottles of wine while doing so.”

“When is he not doing that?” Enjolras joined in after overhearing the conversation.

“No, but this was different,” Jehan exclaimed desperately, “he’s really not doing well. The Grantaire I saw today, wasn’t like him. For the majority of the time while he was rambling he was crying. I know that none of us have ever seen him do that. Enjolras, this is his cry for help. You need to apologize to him.”

“I have nothing to apologize for,” the stubborn leader argued, “He was nothing but a distraction from our cause and by expelling him from our meeting I did what was necessary for the future of this country. He’s the one you should be blaming for this odd behavior. He put it on himself.”

Enjolras left the table and went back to his plans. The leader did not like to think of what happened to the man who compared him to a god while at the same time do everything possible to degrade him. He had more important issues to deal with. There was a king to be overthrown for god’s sake. Grantaire’s drinking problem was not on his list of priorities. 

That day’s meeting was different from the others. Well, all of the meetings had been different ever since the cynic in the back of the room no longer attended, but this day’s meeting had been especially so. Enjolras knew that his colleagues were upset about the disappearance of their friend, but this time the were fearful. 

“Enough is enough,” Enjolras stated halfway through the uncomfortable meeting, “I’ve made a mistake removing Grantaire from Les Amis de l'ABC. I figured that we would be able to accomplish more without the cynic constantly shooting down our beliefs of a better future, but instead the opposite has occurred. He may get in the way sometimes, but we can all agree that he is a friend and how can any of us carry on in life while we know that one of our friends is suffering?”

“Then what shall we do to help him?” Courfeyrac asked.

“I suggest that we all storm his house and wait with him until he can actually focus. Then we attack. We tell him that he is allowed back at our meetings and convince him that passing out all the time does not achieve anything. We do not leave until he rejoins us!” The leader yells with the same fire in his eyes that is only there when he talks of revolution.

For the first time that night everyone cheers proudly with no doubt in their hearts that with their leader’s spirit they can make sure their friend lives to see another day.

Upon arrival the men were not as lucky as they had hoped. In fact, they were more unlucky than they thought they could’ve been. 

“What do you mean he was evicted?” the once hope filled, now anger filled Apollo hollered. He and his friends understood what it meant, but could not comprehend how their efforts have so easily been declared meaningless. 

“Monsieur, surely you must be mistaken. I was here just yesterday and Grantaire was in his room,” Joly said, but it sounded more like he was begging the landlord to tell him what he so desperately wanted to hear.

“Well, sometime between when you visited him and right now he was supposed to pay his rent, but he did have a single franc. I told him to pack his things and leave, but it seems to me that he only did the later as his room is still littered with bottles and drawings.” The landlord responded matter-of-factly.

 

* * *

 

Life had just dropped Grantaire at the bottom of the heap. Grantaire stumbled down the street not knowing where he was going or what to make of himself; he had hit rock bottom. First he lost his friends, then he lost his dignity, and lastly he lost his home. The still highly intoxicated man continued walking until his legs and brain gave up and he collapsed on the cold pavement that looked like a black void in the darkness of the night. On the ground the troubled man spent the night still trying to push his problems away despite the fact that they were catching up to him more than they ever had. 

The next morning he woke up with the sunrise blinding his eyes. Another day was about to dawn, but this day was so much more than just another day. For the first time in his life Grantaire could not try to block out what he feared and had to face the world head on, there was no wine to delay this headache another day. He wandered the streets aimlessly, similarly to how he wandered about the previous night, until he made his way to a significantly more impoverished and crime ridden part of the city. Unfortunately this was the only kind of place that he’d receive any sympathy and that didn’t even come sparingly in the poorest of slums.

Before the man could even fully comprehend his surroundings he was approached by a dirty blonde woman in an almost sheer, dirt-covered, orange, and red dress. “Pay me and I’m yours,” she said stroking the nervous man’s cheek. 

“I would rather not,” He muttered gently brushing the woman aside and trying to get away from the swarm of prostitutes he saw in the area that seemed to all gather when they had a potential customer. 

“I can smell the alcohol in your breath, I know you want a course with your drink,” she teased making her body language as seductive as she possibly could.

“I really don’t,” He said more sternly as he paced away from the woman. 

She opened her mouth to speak, but he stopped her before she could say a word. “Besides, even if I did want to, I have no money so trying to do business with me is fruitless.” 

At that she let him continue along his way and Grantaire thought nothing of the scandalous encounter until he was approached by a gentleman. Well the man looked far from a gentleman as he was wearing bright colors and a ridiculous top hat. “So, a little birdy told me that you are in need of money.” The peculiar man stated looking at Grantaire out of only the corners of his eyes as a devilish grin crept upon his lips.

“That, may be true,” Grantaire replied, not entirely putting his trust in the stranger. A lack of trust the stranger was able to pick up on very quickly. Grantaire could not act as desperate as he was, not in a place like this.

“Do not worry young man,” the stranger implied, “I do not wish to do anything other than assist you and from the stench of your clothing and the amount of francs under your name I can tell that you need said assistance.”

“Go on,” Grantaire  insinuated being careful not to entirely drop his guard. He could not give into a proposition before hearing what it was after all.

“I have a job offer for you my kind sir. You see I have many lovely ladies, but I have been realizing that a few of my possible clientele would rather be with a lovely gentleman such as yourself. These men are very generous with their money my dear, that is if you give them what they want.”

Grantaire had to bite the inside of his mouth to prevent himself from screaming at the man for even considering making such a proposition. 

“It’s a lot to consider, but I see your desperation. It may not be your dream job, but this is the best chance you have.”

As insane as the job proposition (if one could even call it that) was, what was more insane was that Grantaire was actually considering it. It was ridiculous, it was terrifying, but there weren’t anymore options were there? He was at the bottom now, it’s not as if there is anywhere the poor man could turn.

“What do you say?” The man questioned rather persuasively as he saw the realization in the younger man’s brain.

“I’ll take your offer,” Grantaire answered reluctantly as if he was surrendering in battle. 

“You’ll be glad you did,” The man smirked leading Grantaire to a tavern filled with prostitutes, his fellow prostitutes.

 

* * *

 

The leader whose hope was once as radiant as the sun itself had been diminished to a single flicker of a dying flame. It had been 2 months since his friend disappeared and no one had seen him since. Les amis seemed to have checked every street and bar in in Paris with no such luck as to finding their friend.

After everyone had left that night’s meeting Enjolras was the last one to remain in the musain. This was nothing out of the ordinary as he would always have to gather the mountains of strategies and speeches he had brought to the meetings. Although he was never entirely alone then, courtesy of the drunk cynic who was so intoxicated by the end of the night that he simply did not have the capability to leave the musain standing upright. He never took the drunk man’s presence into much consideration then, but one never truly realizes how much they really care about something until it’s gone.

“How do ya’ do?” a disheveled young boy says walking up the stairs to the leader in red.

“Gavroche what are you doing up here so late? Courfeyrac must be worried sick” The leader responded shocked to be joined by the child at such a late hour.

“Eh, he let’s me do what I want,” the child grinned. 

“What are you doing here anyway?” the leader asked, “The meeting has been over for a while now.”

“Well ya see… about that…” Gavroche trailed on as if he was trying to stall his own words, “Your friend who was missin’… I found him.”

“You found Grantaire? Where is he? Is he alright?” Enjolras said faster and more desperately than he would’ve liked to, especially to an impressionable child who revered him the way Gavroche did.

“He’s um… it’s better off I just took ya to him.” Gavroche explained starting down the stairs. Enjolras had no other choice than to follow the child out of the bar and down the streets of Paris. 

They walked for miles for the entire night and it wasn’t until dawn until the young man and the young boy reached the slum that their friend had drunkenly stumbled upon just two months prior. 

“This can’t be where you saw him,” the young man whose golden hair shined and ocean blue eyes glistened in the sunrise stated in an interrogative fashion.

“I wish I hadn’t seen him ‘ere either,” the child replied with a somber tone unexpected from such a young child, “but if you want me to be entirely honest with you this isn’t even the worst of it.”

“Gavroche, you should go home. It’s unsafe for you here. Courfeyrac is probably panicking. You really need to work on listening to him rather than running off all of the time or the poor young man will have gray hairs by the time he’s 25.”

“You need a guide. Besides if it weren’t for me runnin’ off all the time you wouldn’t know that drunk guy was ‘ere in the first place.”

“The only thing I need is for you to be safe. I am grateful for your assistance, but this is not the place for little people,” the leader responds with a heavier tone than he would’ve wanted to, “Go home Gavroche this is a order. I wouldn’t know how to break it to Courfeyrac if something happened to you.”

“Suit yourself. Good luck trying to get any ‘elp from the locals though. Rich men like you are rare in this part o’ the city.” the child replied leaving Enjolras all on his own.

It wasn’t until he walked into the square that the once man who was once confident to the point of cockiness realized he shouldn’t have let the boy leave so soon. Gavroche may have been young, but he was more streetsmart than the majority of the French population, Enjolras himself included. 

“What’s a fine gent like yourself doing in this part of the city?” A young woman in a dress that he could almost see through asked drunkenly, “Hungry for breakfast?”

“I do not require any of your… um… services,” Enjolras stumbled, “I am simply looking for a friend of mine. This seems to be a tight knit… community, do you perhaps know where he is?”

“Well that depends, what’s his name? I’ve been with basically every man in this part of town and if he’s nearly as handsome as you I don’t think I would forget him,” she said more to seduce Enjolras rather than to provide him with any information on his friend’s whereabouts.

“His name is Grantaire. You wouldn’t happen to know him would you? I doubt he would’ve gotten with you as he’s in a bit of a rough financial situation…”

“You’re a queer?” the prostitute said more as an exclamation than a question.

Enjolras had to bite his tongue to prevent himself from screaming at the woman. Instead he questioned, “Why in heaven’s name would you think that?”

“You just asked me if I could direct to the most desirable male prostitute in town, why wouldn’t I believed you were a homosexual?”

“He’s a prostitute?” Enjolras practically yelled for the whole town to hear, “I never would’ve imagined that it would’ve come to that for him. This...this is all my fault what do I do? You need to get me to him I need to help him.” The blonde was on the verge of tears and holding them back was like trying to quiet a crowd of angry men.

“He should be in the tavern down that way,” she says pointing to run down building this time more subdued as opposed to the boisterous tone she took not long ago.

Enjolras inhaled, then exhaled heavily and thanked the woman sparing her with a few francs for her assistance. The once fearless leader made his way to the bar. 

 

* * *

 

Grantaire awoke that dawn on the floor of the tavern, but for him waking up on the floor was ideal because waking up in a bed meant that there was certainly a stranger lying next to him. The sounds of a man’s boots pounding against the creaky floorboards did not help with the headache he had from the previous night’s wine. It also did not help that it was a man walking into the bar which meant one of two things: one of the lovely ladies had a client, or he did. 

“Grantaire, wakey wakey, looks like you’ve got a customer,” his boss (if one could even call him that) said from behind the bar.

Grantaire was reluctant to lift his head or even completely open his eyes until he heard a familiar voice boom, “I do not wish to engage in any… activity with Grantaire sir, I simply wish to speak with my friend.” And at that he sprang awake up as if a gun had been fired. His eyes opened completely and he was nearly blinded the man who resembled Apollo’s radiance. He was brought out of the cave and into the light, but the light hurt his eyes and he went blind remembering that it was Apollo’s fault he was cast into the darkness in the first place. 

“What do you want from me? It’s bad enough you took my pride, that night when you cast me aside,” Grantaire groaned bitterly still not looking the man he venerated to the point where it could only be considered love in the eye.

Enjolras kneeled on the ground next to him lightly placing a hand on his shoulder, it was the first time in months that a man’ touch made Grantaire feel safe. “I realized that what I did that night was wrong, but when I finally pushed my stubbornness aside it was too late. You were gone and only now I found you and only now I can apologize. I do not expect you to forgive me for I am not worthy of your forgiveness, but please come back with me. You can stay with me until you get back on your feet it’s the least I can do after abandoning you to such a cruel life,” Enjolras pleaded with a softness that not one single person had ever heard in his voice.

“Do you permit it?” He responded the words scratched against his throat. Enjolras only responded by clasping the broken man’s hand in his own and leading him out of the dangerous world he was forced to live in.

**Author's Note:**

> This was my first les mis fic so sorry that my writing style kind of sucks I am not nor am I trying to be Victor Hugo (at least that means no sewers though). If you want a part 2 maybe a little less sad and unrequited let me know in the comments. Wow, I can't believe I fit this into a one shot. 
> 
> *Side note this is probably incredibly inaccurate as most people do actual research about 19th centurary France for these kinds of fics, but I just kind of winged it.


End file.
